A Fin‐shaped Flow Channel Enhances Water Removal Performance in a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell

Abstract

AbstractEffective water removal and transport in the flow channel is significantly important to the critical water management in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). In this work, we proposed a fin‐shaped flow channel with hydrophobic walls to enhance liquid water removal from the surface of gas diffusion layer (GDL). Computational fluid dynamics simulations with volume‐of‐fluid method were carried out to investigate the liquid water behavior in the fin‐shaped flow channel. The results indicated that the hydrophobic fin‐shaped flow channel can not only effectively remove the water droplets on the GDL surface, but also accelerate their transport, avoiding water accumulation; the appropriate length, width and depth of the fin‐shaped grooves are 2.0 mm, 0.3 mm and 0.7 mm for comprehensive consideration of the water removal and transport, and the pressure drop throughout the channel. This work provides an alternative to conventional straight flow channel, and is helpful for the designing of high output PEMFCs.